CSPI Praises Ruby Tuesday Menu Labeling Plan

Statement of CSPI nutrition policy director Margo G. Wootan

March 9, 2004

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Ruby Tuesday deserves enormous credit for announcing today that it will put nutrition information for all of its items right on its menus. By doing that, by saying it will add some more healthful foods, and by its earlier decision to fry in a trans-fat-free cooking oil, Ruby Tuesday stands head and shoulders above its competitors when it comes to nutrition.

Ruby Tuesday is proving that the restaurant industry's lobbyists are wrong when they claim that it's impractical to provide nutrition information on menus. Most chains have standardized menus with carefully controlled (if overly large) portions. All large chain restaurants can do this, and they should.

Ideally, Ruby Tuesday would be listing saturated-plus-trans fat--the kind of fats that are bad for one's heart, instead of total fat; and it would list real carbohydrates instead of the potentially misleading "net carbs." We'd also prefer that the chain list sodium, since most restaurant food is too high in sodium. But despite those details, Ruby Tuesday's announcement is a historic first, and we urge Applebee's, Chili's, Outback, and other large chains to follow suit.

Margo Wootan

Margo Wootan is Vice President for Nutrition at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, named as the top-ranked Nonprofit for National Childhood Nutrition/Health by Guidestar’s Philanthropedia. She was named one of the “Most Innovative Women in Food and Drink” by Fortune magazine, a “Food Hero” by Eating Well magazine, and recognized by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health for her leadership in public policy. Dr. Wootan received her B.S. in nutrition from Cornell University and her doctorate in nutrition from Harvard University’s School of Public Health. Wootan has led successful campaigns to require calorie counts on restaurant menus and menu boards, eliminate artificial trans fat, raise nutrition standards for school foods, reduce junk-food marketing aimed at children, and expand nutrition and physical activity pro­grams at CDC. She co-founded and leads both the National Alliance for Nutrition and Activity and the Food Marketing Workgroup.

Wootan is a powerful voice shaping the national nutrition debate. She is quoted regularly in the nation’s major media and appeared in the movies Super Size Me and Fed Up.